I bought the game through Steam after watching gameplay videos. Here is my overview, as a gamer sincerely looking for a great turn based space game, for the developer's consideration.
1. CUSTOMIZATION OF RACES - I love being able to customize, but there are some serious adjustments needed in this. I set the game on the hardest level and customized the humans... basically used most of my techs to get max traits on pretty much everything. Either do not allow the techs to be traded in for points which can be used for other traits (i.e. only for "tech points" or such) or lower their trade in value so that you can't max everything by trading them in...
2. MICRO MANAGEMENT - The basic functionality is fine, but it gets very much into repetitive micro management when you do big maps (which I love doing in space games). By 100 turns into a game with a large map... I feel like I'm grinding the exact same buttons on planets over and over for the exact same results. A simple automation would help (i.e. tell me how many "plots" or spaces I have on a planet and allow me to select how many times to upgrade each building category. Thus one time I can go to a planet, see the max possible plots, cue 3 farms, 3 industry, 2 research.. etc. And not have to recue it again -since when I have enough money it will auto build that next item. Maybe make it build only one item at a time so it takes longer and you can to choose more carefully to balance as you develop.
3. PLANETS NEEDS MORE VARIETY/DEPTH - All the planets seem to be only slightly different in results/development. I can pretty much slap together equal amounts of food buildings, industry, research, etc. and every planet is pretty much just easily fine.
4. COMBAT NEEDS... SOMETHING - Also, the combat screen is... mediocre. I end up just hitting auto to finish it and forget it because its a bit unwieldy. Please do not be offended, but the best turn based space game I've ever played (and STILL play) is MOO3. Turn based game with real time combat. Even if you don't go real time combat, there has got to be a way to make the combat more user friendly and engaging.
Horizon is not a bad game, it has a good framework to build on. At this point, if I had known what it was like before hand I would not have bought it though. It needs more depth, more challenge & difficulty to master in general gameplay and much smoother (& BIGGER!!! and more user friendly) battles. I understand the game is new and therefore hope to see it fleshed out more through development. Make this into a real game of space chess where the planets you take the ships you design & build all really matter.
I do hope to be able to rate things better in the future. I have been hungry for an awesome turn based space game for a years.
Appreciate your time and efforts and hope my review hasn't irked you.
My Summary List
Re: My Summary List
1. That's something you can control, the AI doesn't get to make custom races (I think), and this is not a multiplayer game so you can put your own self imposed "rules" on how to customize a race yourself.
2. I agree
3. Planets are very much a "simple" background to the overall game. But yeah, the only thing that affects what you can do on a planet is the planet size in which case you get a couple more or less buildings
4. MOO3... *shiver* don't ever want to think of that abomination (although I've heard it's better with user made patches). That said the turn based movement and choices are not actually done on the galaxy screen, they're done in the combat screen from what I can tell. So making a move to real time combat would require a huge rework of the game mechanics. Think of the game StarDrive (if you've played it) it's a 4X type of game, but it's all real time and there is no difference between where ships are, just different levels of zoom. Similar thing here except it's turn based instead of real time.
Unfortunately I think the game is fairly set at what the mechanics of it are, there's no way they're going to massively overhaul a game at this stage.
2. I agree
3. Planets are very much a "simple" background to the overall game. But yeah, the only thing that affects what you can do on a planet is the planet size in which case you get a couple more or less buildings
4. MOO3... *shiver* don't ever want to think of that abomination (although I've heard it's better with user made patches). That said the turn based movement and choices are not actually done on the galaxy screen, they're done in the combat screen from what I can tell. So making a move to real time combat would require a huge rework of the game mechanics. Think of the game StarDrive (if you've played it) it's a 4X type of game, but it's all real time and there is no difference between where ships are, just different levels of zoom. Similar thing here except it's turn based instead of real time.
Unfortunately I think the game is fairly set at what the mechanics of it are, there's no way they're going to massively overhaul a game at this stage.
Re: My Summary List
Yeah, I'm not saying they need real time combat per say. But the management of the screen was really good... the arrangement of fleets and there were some basic controls at the bottom for selecting ships and decisions (attack, retreat, etc). You could multi select ships and give them a group command, save different groups of ships to a hot key (control 1-0) and easily hot key yourself to those groups throughout the battle, stuff like that. But, for example, in Horizon even when I zoom in it is hard to see the tiny tiny ships even if I know they are there due to the minimap. I want to have control, see what is going on. The current combat just seems inconvenient to manage and for me it feels like I'm not really involved in the battle.
As for M003 I loved it from the start, but yeah the player mods (of which I have several) are fantastic - making the game even more challenging and varied. It wasn't just a thin appearance of planetary development and only combat (like some more recent games). It was full scale ability to control everything, planets, different kinds of troops, all sorts of techs, all sorts of ships types and weapons, lots of ways to fight, a pretty decently involved espionage and diplomacy... You could micromanage or you could automate too. You had practically complete control. What I would love is the depth and scale of MOO3 with the newer real time combat system of sword of the stars (which regrettably had barely any planetary controls whatsoever).
Anyway, I'm still experimenting with Horizon. Still think it needs more difficulty settings. I love customizing my race... but then the game gets too easy. Let me customize and still try to kick my rear with the ai please! : P
As for M003 I loved it from the start, but yeah the player mods (of which I have several) are fantastic - making the game even more challenging and varied. It wasn't just a thin appearance of planetary development and only combat (like some more recent games). It was full scale ability to control everything, planets, different kinds of troops, all sorts of techs, all sorts of ships types and weapons, lots of ways to fight, a pretty decently involved espionage and diplomacy... You could micromanage or you could automate too. You had practically complete control. What I would love is the depth and scale of MOO3 with the newer real time combat system of sword of the stars (which regrettably had barely any planetary controls whatsoever).
Anyway, I'm still experimenting with Horizon. Still think it needs more difficulty settings. I love customizing my race... but then the game gets too easy. Let me customize and still try to kick my rear with the ai please! : P
Re: My Summary List
Thanks, we appreciate all constructive feedback. One of our main short-term focus is on improving the AI, tactical combat flow and further balancing. So the ideas and suggestions are very welcome.
Horizon - Lead Designer | a.k.a. Raf